I am nineteen now. People would ask me about my resolutions. I have a few, I shall post them here. I think I am combining my 2008 resolutions together with my birthday's, makes things easier, I guess. It's also a guideline for how 2008 should be like, because a life without school is pretty aimless, unless you self-impose something. Some of the resolutions might seem ambitious, some idealistic, some just plain dull. Without reservations, here are they:

Getting into University with ease, into the course of my choice, which is Biological Sciences. But fate has been long sealed for this.

Decent and satisfying social life, which will take some effort on my part.

Attend Vajrayana Buddhism course, get a certificate, then probably work towards a Lama status. But the latter is a long term thing.

Read more, bestow myself more knowledge, wisdom and depth.

German Language Class

Work = money = better life (according to the GDP/GNP argument, which is biased)

Get myself a freaking proper goth outfit, for Odin's sake.

Write more, I just need right amount of muse.

Get away from Singapore for awhile. Need a different atmosphere even if it's only for 3 days and 2 nights.

Watch more films, so I can finally say more "Yes" when Kevin askes me about films.

May all around me be happy, enjoy peace and have fruitful endeavours.

Other than that, I went to the Greek Masterpieces Exhibition by Lourve today at the National Museum. It's well worth the S$4 I spent on the admission ticket. Great experience, to see the exhibits that are probably hundreds of years old, all the way from France, Lourve. The fact that it's probably once a lifetime thing for people 3 generations before and after mine made it really neat. I urge people who want to have a more delicate time this weekend to pay the museum a visit, you are will be well treated with the exhibits. Enough advertisements. After the visit, I must say I don't exactly favour the Ancient Greek society and how they function. Just think of a society where women held little/no say, sports are excessively emphasised *hint: conformity*, and the overwhelming frequency of war and unrest, and the militaristic patriarchal structure of the society. I am not in much favour of their nonsensical take on religion too, they are polythetistic, that's alright, but they did nothing to enrich their spiritual lives but to do blind sacrifices to their patron-deity, like wtf? Bleh. I would only give them credit for having Socrates, Plato and Aristotle as their citizens, and all other Greek playwriters/historians. Otherwise, the language is pretty nice to look deeper into, it's quite nice to observe how they are integrated into the English language and mathematical notations of today.Socrates, Σωκράτης.470BC to 399 BC (unfortunately, due to his valour in the name of his so-called heretical ideas)Butt-Ugly but who cares?! He rocks, more than you, anyway. =)

Then I went to meet up with Kevin for a short chat session at Orchard, then to watch my sister's performance at the Esplanade.

And I really do think you are, not wrong in your thought, just... ignoring a lot of very important things. First of all, women, as I've said before, weren't treated any differently in most other places at the time. It was common practice rising from the way of life, men were physically stronger and less vulnerable. Women had periods, children and all that jazz that we still do. And also, when Plato spoke of the Philosopher-kings, he didn't make any distinction between men and women, or more specifically, he said women could just as well be fit to be a philosopher-king as men.

However, Greece wasn't a country, it was a set of "polis" or city-states as you call them in English. Overwhelming frequency of war and unrest? Doesn't it make sense? I mean, countries still fight each other on a regular basis today, and we're supposed to be oh-so-evolved. There was a greater number of countries on the Peloponnese in ancient Greece than today in Europe. They did have a common culture and more or less a common language, the alphabet etc. but definitely not the politics. Militaristic patriarchal society was there for a reason, life wasn't as comfortable as it is today, there was always a problem with territory, Ancient or even today's Greece doesn't exactly have the capacity of fertile grounds to provide for themselves. They had to import wheat and all that jazz... A nation/culture/tribe will do a lot to survive. I mean look at the Spartans, they killed the sick and they slaughtered great numbers of children on occasion. You think they did that because they liked it? There wasn't enough food. Survival and politics does have a way of causing war.

And seriously, what's wrong with the Olympics? Yeah, ok, conformity, I don't follow. When have athletics become a bad thing? And even if you think it demonstrates conformity, did you know that during the Olympics and up to 3 months before, they declared the Olympic Peace? It was a time of peace, Olympics... They stopped wars for Olympics. Isn't that worth something? Promoting peace through sports... Isn't that what the Olympics are all about? Well, they used to be anyway. That and their nonsensical religion.

Originally, the origin of religion was to explain natural phenomena that they didn't know how to explain otherwise, to make life seem just and fair... or to explain things they couldn't wrap their minds around. I don't quite understand your idea of a quest for spirituality, it was a thing of survival, a thing of reason and cause and trying to know why things happen. Why one year there were crops and the next there were none etc. And even nowadays, your personal belief is that everybody who don't seek spirituality in religion, all the Christians, muslims, hindus etc. that accept what they were taught and live with it, have a nonsensical take on religion? Can you really not see the point and reason? And besides, amongst the intellectuals, there were many atheists, so don't go throwing them all in one barrel.

As far as giving them credit for Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, (they were philosophers, I'm fairly certain none of them wrote Plays, though Plato's dialogues could be interpreted as a form of a play, and I'm pretty sure none of them were historians specifically.) there were many other things you left out. Major things... Pithagoras? Triangles and all that jazz? There's a reason you use greek letters for angles in triangles. Also, Democritus in 4th century BC came up with the concept of an atom. 4 BC! Not to mention the first democracy was in 5BC Athens. -.-

As far as their art is concerned, look at their sculpturing and then look at sculpturing in latter times. It took Renaissance to figure out how to realistically do people and things again. And what's not spiritual or philosophical about their art? If nothing else, the concept of a soul was so sacred and undepictable to them, they didn't do eyes.